Ippudo Ramen - Ikebukuro, Tokyo - Japan

Ramen with minced pork

On our Shinkansen ride to Tokyo we had time to talk about what's for lunch and explored our options. In the end we decided on Ippudo ramen because there was one location at Ikebukuro which was our destination for the afternoon.

We took about 20 minutes to find this ramen place after getting lost. When we got there we got confused because there was no English characters on the signage. After a few Google searches we pinpoint the right business and was glad when we walked in and turned out to be correct. Phew.

This ramen restaurant was pretty big for Japan standard. We were seated and got to order from a menu instead of purchasing a meal ticket at a vending machine. We were both starving because it was already 2 pm and though we had rice for breakfast it was pretty early in the morning. I decided on a ramen with some spicy red paste. Hubby ordered a different fiery bowl of ramen with minced pork topping. And we decided to share an order of gyoza. Our friendly waiter with her limited English was trying to explain to us that it's a better deal to order from lunch combo that also came with gyoza. In the end we understood and chose that lunch combo for hubby.



The ramen portion in Japan is smaller compare to US so if you're used to US portion you may need an exra portion of noodle. Or you could order the lunch combo which came with gyoza and a bowl of rice !

Just like Ichiran ramen, when the bowl arrived I could smell the fragrant of garlic out of it. But not much of garlic taste when I actually ate it. Topping was simple just a few green onion. If you like bean sprout with the noodle, help yourself with some pickle (?) bean sprout in one of the container on the table. The noodle here was thin and straight. The broth seemed to be lighter but still packed a lot of flavor. Hubby's one though was a bit too salty for me. It could be from the stir fry minced pork that was used as topping. But I can say that it will go well with rice.

The gyozas were tiny. Almost half the size of the normal gyoza size that I know here in the US. Unfortunately that was the only encounter we had with gyoza so I couldn't come to conclusion whether that was actually normal gyoza size in Japan.

All in all the food was great and the service was awesome. Everyone was so friendly and polite

Rating :

Ippudo Ramen

Japan, 〒171-0022 Tokyo, Toshima, Minamiikebukuro, 2−26−10 アクティオーレ南池袋

Hours: Closing soon · 11AM–1AM

Phone: +81 3-6907-8305